Patrick Hilyer, author of the award-winning wine travel guide French Vineyards, lives and works in Normandy, France. "For the first ten years of life in rural France we ran a small restaurant called Le Délice. My wife was the chef de cuisine and I did all the non-skilled work... In 2008 I got a publishing deal with the guidebook publishers Alastair Sawday's for a book on the French wine regions called French Vineyards. I've since published two novels: The Grape's Joy and A Devil in the Grape. Now I'm working on the third book in the series and a book about our experiences in the French restaurant trade. I have a typically ambivalent relationship with my adopted country: I adore the French landscape, the ancient architecture, the fine food and wine; I can't abide the bureaucracy or the way my neighbours drive. As in every other country I've ever visited (including Great Britain) the people are, on the whole, very nice. I invariably regard my glass as being half full. I don't write like Elmore Leonard or James Elroy, and for that I offer no apologies. I enjoy all good writing. One of my earliest literary memories goes back to when I was three or four, listening to my mother reading "The Outing" by Dylan Thomas. I've enjoyed lyrical prose ever since. My favourite crime-writers are Donna Leon, Michael Dibdin and Thomas Harris. I imagine myself writing like Julian Barnes, drinking like Tennessee Williams and living like Ernest Hemingway; then reach for my pipe and slippers and a hot cup of cocoa. Brexit stinks."